Morning Brief: Investigation into Snowbird crash has begun

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Good morning, readers. We hope you had a nice long weekend.

The Royal Canadian Air Force has begun investigating what caused one of its aerobatics jets to crash, which caused the death of one air force member and serious injuries to another.

Lieut.-Col. Mike French, commanding officer of the Snowbirds, told the Toronto Star on Monday that local law enforcement in Kamloops, B.C., where one plane crashed in an air demonstration gone-wrong on Sunday, and that an investigation team from the military’s Directorate of Flight Safety had arrived from Ottawa to determine what caused the accident.

Captain Jennifer Casey, a RCAF public affairs officer, was killed in the crash. Capt. Richard MacDougall was seriously injured. A video captured of the accident showed that Casey and MacDougall both ejected from the aircraft before it crashed into a residential neighbourhood.

French said investigators will review video footage, conduct interviews, examine human factors, weather conditions and maintenance activity that could have contributed to the crash, and that preliminary findings are typically released within 30 days.

With a May 25 deadline ahead as the end-date to a parliamentary hiatus, it’s expected that the return of the House – or the terms of which it can continue conducting legislative business – will dominate the federal political agenda this week. Conservatives want to return to face-to-face Chamber business, but the governing Liberals are against moving to returning too quickly, giving reason that they don’t want to risk a wave of COVID-19 infections. Kady O’Malley explored that topic and more of what to expect in the federal political spotlight in the shortened week ahead.

In a memorandum released shortly after Trump’s statements, the president’s doctor said that “after numerous conversations” they jointly agreed the “potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.” (CNN)

And after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced to the World Health Organization (WHO) that his country would donate $2 billion to efforts to fight COVID-19, Trump administration officials said it’s an attempt to influence the global health body. The “commitment of $2 billion is a token to distract from calls from a growing number of nations demanding accountability for the Chinese government’s failure to meet its obligations under international health regulations to tell the truth and warn the world of what was coming,” John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement.

Trump cut off funding to the WHO last month. Xi’s pledge over two years amounts to more than twice what the U.S. had been giving the global health body. Xi also promised on Monday that China would support an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. (New York Times)

The leaders of France and Germany have proposed that the European Union borrow more than $500 billion to disperse as grants to European countries that have been impacted the worst by the pandemic. Under the proposal that the 25 other member states have yet to agree to, countries receiving the funds would not repay the cash and instead the debt would be added to the EU budget, which nations contribute to based on their size and the value of their economies. (The Guardian)

American officials said on Monday that their investigation of a Saudi Air Force officer who went on a killing spree at a U.S. naval base in December revealed that he worked with al-Qaeda to plan the attack. (BBC News)

Cartoon of the Day

Greg Perry cartoon

FINALLY

A Calgary man who set sail from Vancouver Island with a goal of circumnavigating the world last September. The sailor, Bill Norrie, lost the ability to communicate with the outside world aside from being able to send sparse words through a tracking app on April 25. Prior to last week, when he finally arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, he hadn’t stepped on dry land for months – leading him to wonder if when he eventually docked he would find the world depopulated, according to CBC News. Read more about how Norrie’s navigated his own unique isolation, here.